Spanish Land Grant

John Addison was the brother of my great great great grandmother Mary Addison. Mary and John Addison were both born in Bladen County North Carolina and moved eventually to the present Manatee County Florida. John fought in the War of 1812 and received bounty land in Manatee County on the west coast of Florida from the US Government for his military service.

For some reason he also received a Spanish Land Grant in 1816 under the name Don Juan Addison. After the US took over Florida the Spanish Land Grants and Claims were all evaluated to determine if they would be allowed. Many of the claims were bogus and denied. Spainish officials created many of them without authority on their way out of town and some were people who lived on the land but never had title. John Addision's Spanish Land Grant was for 1414 acres of land on the Tomoka River on the east coast of Florida in present Volusia County. I found the records for it in the Florida archives. It is just north of where my sister in law lives today in Ormond Beach, Florida.

My Spanish education consisted of a few lessons in Second grade so I'm not sure what the land grant says. One day maybe I can find someone to translate it. The interesting part of the land grant is the color map of the property. It shows the land on the west side of the Tomoka River and includes drawings of the dwellings and trees on the property. I have several relatives who have worked as surveyors. I don't think they go to this detail on their surveys.

According to the records in the Florida Archives, John Addison's claim to the land on the Tomoka River was confirmed by the US Government in 1825. As far as I can tell he never lived there. He was listed on the 1830 and 1840 census in Leon County Florida and in 1850 he was in the part of Hillsborough County that became Manatee.